Guild Wars 2

Often times I feel like I’ll mention a game on this site and then never talk about it again. I promise you that this is not some small part of a larger conspiracy theory. I truthfully just quickly get bored with games that fail to grab hold of me. Case in point:

Closing Thoughts:

MMO’s are time-sucking-vortexes that I simply do not have time for anymore. While I still enjoy reading about them, I feel that the genre as a whole has not advanced forward. World of Warcraft is the pinnacle of modern MMO gaming. Games like RIFT, though polished, offer me nothing compelling to forget about World of Warcraft and move forward. I do hope that Star Wars: The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2 do something to shake up this genre funk. I miss playing a good MMO. Until that day, MMO’s like RIFT have been banished from my computer. Case closed.

.: Top Searches for 5/3/10 :.

1. dungeon hunter ending – Dungeon Hunter was a great time waster. My biggest complaint was that the inventory system seemed needlessly complicated. Otherwise, the ending was satisfying for what little story there was.

2. cozyquest itunes – CozyQuest will forever be a dream unrealized by its creator. Deal with it.

3. auction house external site warcraft – While this feature has yet to be launched, I’m at least interested to see how popular this feature will turn out to be. Will work as we know it be forever altered? Probably not.

Of course GW2 has great support for parties, but they just don’t feel as necessary as they do in other MMOs, because your interests are always aligned with all other nearby players anyway. When someone kills a monster, not just that player’s party but everyone who was seriously involved in the fight gets 100% of the XP and loot for the kill. When an event is happening in the world – when the bandits are terrorizing a village – everyone in the area has the same motivation, and when the event ends, everyone gets rewarded.

Above is an excerpt from the recently launched Guild Wars 2 blog. Just wanted to take a moment and note that this new social system reminds me of the Public Quests found in Warhammer Online…except that everyone wins.

Once upon a time, many years ago, I journeyed to the land of Tyria for the first time. Tyria was a land free of subscription based play and featured a unique content delivery system. Guild Wars was new, fun, and graphically impressive.

The recent stirrings of Guild War 2 news has me wondering, what has happened in Guild Wars since I left? Besides the three expansions (Factions, Nightfall, Eye of the North), does anyone still play this game?

Intrigued, I decided to download the client, install the game, and log in. I was then greeted with the the familiar load screen. Only this time, 24,408 files were in desperate need of download. Admission to Tyria was denied over my lunch hour. At least for today.

Last week I promised you’d get your first glimpse of Guild Wars 2 “very soon now”. That day is almost here.

I want to thank all our fans for their patience as we developed the game to the point where we can start talking about it publically. I know you’ve all been anxiously awaiting this moment. You’ll soon understand how ambitious we’ve been and what we’ve accomplished during these past two years of development. We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but from here on out we’ll be able to provide you with more regular updates.

Guild Wars 2 is going to be a huge leap beyond the original. We have the best team in the industry executing at the top of their game, and I’m very proud of what our team has accomplished so far. As I said last week, I’m confident that when you get your first look at what we’ve been working on, you’re going to love what you see. Stay tuned for an exciting week ahead.